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11
SCARLET FEVER EPIDEMIC.
Scarlet Fever which may be said to have been singularly
absent from us for the three previous years at least, became epidemic
during the year under review, and a table of the cases recorded monthly
in the Sanitary Department, together with the deaths referable thereto,
will be found further on.
Judging from the proportionate number of deaths, the disease
has been throughout of an exceptionally mild and comparatively nonfatal
character. The Metropolitan Asylums Board having their
Hospitals nearly empty, made every sensational effort to create alarm,
in order to secure the removal to their care of every person attacked,
even of Infants who should certainly be allowed to remain in the
care of their mothers.
The table I have prepared, showing the ages of those removed to
Hospital, may from this point of view be found interesting, as from it
will be seen that no less than 68 infants and children under the asre
of five years, and 109 children between the ages of five and ten years,
were removed to the Board's Hospitals from this Parish alone.
I must say that I strongly deprecate the forced removal of very
young children to Hospital when suffering from such a disease as
Scarlet Fever, nor do I think this course either wise or expedient, for
if we live long enough, we shall all, sooner or later, with few exceptions,
be sure to have it and perhaps at an age when it will be less convenient
and more dangerous to suffer from it, and it may therefore be safely
asserted that the rigid practice of isolation and of removal to Hospital
may be carried too far.
It is indeed a subject of surprise that a larger number of adults
should not have been attacked during this epidemic, although there
were in all no less than 75 persons attacked above the age of fifteen.
I have also stated in Tabular form the number of cases occurring
in each ward of the Parish during the year.